Social-ecological conflicts: An emancipatory conceptual approach by bringing other-than-humans into environmental conflict analysis

This paper contributes to the study of other-than-humans in environmental conflicts. In light of the increasing number of environmental conflicts arising from multiple intensifying societal and ecological crises, scholars are calling for nature, or more specifically other-than-humans, to be seen as relevant forces in conflicts. To broaden the anthropocentric understanding of environmental conflicts as social conflicts about nature, we elaborate a conceptual approach to social-ecological conflicts with nature by bringing other-than-humans into the analysis. We propose social-ecological conflict analysis as a conceptual approach for recognising the interlinked emancipatory potential that unfolds in conflicts for both marginalised people and other-than-humans. We conceptualise social-ecological conflicts as spatiotemporal encounters between two or more coalitions, each consisting of both societal and other-than-human conflict parties. These encounters emerge from incompatible societal relations to nature expressed by the different coalitions, such as the capitalist appropriation of nature versus the sustainable coexistence of society and nature. While rejecting an a priori ontological separation of society and nature, we analytically differentiate between humans, living and non-living other-than-humans to reveal the reinforcing or competing relations that emerge between them in conflicts. We have elaborated analytical terms, such as social-ecological coalitions , conflict parties , effects and impulses that are applicable to humans and to other-than-humans. The development of the conceptual approach is based on an extensive literature review of studies on the role of other-than-humans in environmental conflicts. After a stepwise construction of key definitions and terms, we substantiate our concept empirically with the case of groundwater conflicts in the Júcar River Basin, Spain. To further strengthen social-ecological conflict analysis, we propose the application of the conceptual approach to empirical cases for further conceptual and methodological developments, as well as a discussion of the potentials for conflict interventions with social-ecological conflicts analysis in which conflicts are productive forces for emancipatory aspirations.